Taken altogether, the day’s proceedings, regarded as the performance of Christian gentlemen, citizens of a Christian country, upon the day designated by Christianity as a day of peace and rest—as a day of devotion to celestial and holy things, could hardly be regarded as encouraging to those hopeful persons who cherish the theory that the world is to be made better by illustrations of the excellence of the advantages of pure religion.
CHAPTER III.
MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF MR. COWDRICK.—THE “CRAB.”—“HEAR BOTH SIDES.”—A SKELETON DISCOVERED.—A POWERFUL SERMON.
Before another Sunday came, the community was shocked and startled by the announcement that Mr. Cowdrick, the banker, had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. What had become of him nobody seemed to know. Even Mrs. Cowdrick apparently did not know. The friends who promptly called upon her, partly for the purpose of offering her their sympathy and partly with an intent to gratify their curiosity, ascertained, during the intervals of her hysterical spasms, that she cherished a wild and rather incoherent theory that Mr. Cowdrick had been brutally assassinated by some person and for some cause unknown. And this theory obtained some acceptance for a time among amiable people, who were disposed to take the most charitable view of the situation. But the number of these speedily diminished when the newspapers, a day or two later, revealed the result of an official examination of the affairs of Mr. Cowdrick’s bank. The public then learned that that financial institution was rotten through and through; that Mr. Cowdrick and his partners in crime had not only used, for purposes of private speculation, the money of the depositors, but that they had stolen everything of value that had been committed to their care, and had left the bank an absolute, hopeless wreck, and reduced the innocent and unsuspicious stockholders to beggary.
The public excitement, of course, was great. Mrs. Cowdrick’s friends neglected her. The rich and influential De Flukes actually insulted her by sending to recall an invitation to their reception that had been sent to her. As if Mrs. Cowdrick could have attended the reception at any rate! This was the cruellest thing of all, to Mrs. Cowdrick. She broke down completely and went to bed, where Leonie waited upon her to supply her with almost alarming quantities of camphor and smelling-salts.
As no traces of the fugitive could be found; as no one could testify to having seen him leave the city; and as the detective force, after following out without success any number of what they considered excellent clues, appeared to have relapsed into a normal condition of imbecility and indifference, the conclusion reached by many persons was, that Cowdrick had destroyed himself; and the energetic and enterprising coroner, McSorley, who had just been elected upon the Democratic ticket, went to work to drag all the rivers and creeks and ponds in the neighborhood.
Colonel Hoker, the editor of the Crab, the leading daily paper, advocated a dozen different theories in turn, and his indomitable reporters not only secured early and accurate reports of the condition of the bank, but they obtained expressions of opinion from at least thirty eminent citizens who really knew no more about the matter than other people, and they watched Cowdrick’s house so closely, and were so successful in establishing confidential relations with the chambermaid, that they were able to tell how often the doctor called to see Mrs. Cowdrick, what quantity of reinvigorating drugs she consumed, how her medicine agreed with her, and what she had every day for dinner.
A country wherein a tyrant’s power is used to shackle the press, and to rob it of freedom of utterance, does not know how much it misses.
The uncertainty in which the fate of Mr. Cowdrick was involved, made it exceedingly difficult for Colonel Hoker to discuss the bank sensation in his editorial columns. If he could have felt sure that the unhappy fugitive had really slain himself, the course of the Colonel would have been clear; for then he could with safety have directed public attention to the peculiar atrocity of the transactions at the bank; he could have held the miserable offender up before the public eye to point to him as an awful example to others, and especially to the young, and he could have preached many eloquent sermons upon the text, “Be sure your sins will find you out!”